


Courting with Fire

by Anonymous



Series: A Golden Age of Their Own [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Elizabethan Period, Historical AU, M/M, period-approperiate non-explicit violence, so it's more like a 'what if' fic, though I fucked with history here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 07:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20403799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "You are Queen Elizabeth I’s only son! The Heir to the throne of England, whom everybody loves, the Vanquisher of the Great Armada –“





	Courting with Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonsquill (dragonsquill)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill/gifts).

> This is a prequel to [this work](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SecretAdmirers/works/11860239).

The story of how Fili came to be known as the Vanquisher of the Great Armada has been told and re-told countless times, embellished with ever more fantastical details of courage, clever strategy and Godly intervention. It has been written into history in ornate, golden letters and would follow Fili throughout his life as one of the defining moments not only of his reign, but also in the history of England.

But like so much of history, what actually happens is infinitely less glorious than what’s recorded. Or perhaps it’s more – depends how you look at it.

If you’re a young prince struggling to decipher the conflicting desires of your own heart – it’s _definitely_ so much more than what’s written.

Elizabeth sends Fili to lead the fight against the Armada because she wants a royal stamp over this naval battle, direct control and ownership; her son will be her representative where she herself cannot go.

She would if she could: Fili has learned how to be fierce only from her.

If the battle is won, it will make him not only an instant hero, but also a rare thing: an heir to the throne that people actually want. He could never have a stronger claim than that.

If the battle is lost, Elizabeth’s heir will be safely away from the capital, which will no doubt take the brunt of the invasion. He may yet escape – to France or elsewhere – and take back his birth right when the time is right.

Fili is twenty. Much, much too young to be holding the fate of a nation in his hands.

Fortunately, he is intelligent enough to _know_ this, leaving greater men to lead his fleet. That is his mother’s triumph – she knows her son well.

“Gentlemen, few battles in history have been won by gawping,” he simply tells his captains with all the cockiness of his youth, when men who have spent their entire lives running sea campaigns stop their council to bow their heads and look to him for instructions.

He stays in the cabin though, listens and learns, tucked away comfortably in the shadows, where he’s paid no mind. He’s not entirely oblivious: he’s been studying naval history works and strategy treaties since it became clear that the Armada was a threat. Eventually he starts to question, never command, and in doing so, he earns his advisor’s respect.

Unfortunately, there is one thing Elizabeth fails to consider in her plans: Fili’s honour. Her son will not claim a victory he hasn’t earned for himself and _that_ is perhaps the greater threat to the line of succession than the entire Armada put together.

And that’s _before_ anyone accounts for Kili.

At the tender age of eighteen, Kili is left behind, to ‘protect the Queen if the need arises’.

Needless to say, it doesn’t go down very well, or last very long.

He may be a bastard, but he is still a Portuguese royal, and as such, the Spanish are his sworn enemies – is the excuse he’s going to use later, when questioned about his actions. As the Prince’s Companion, Kili _can_ and frequently _does_ get away with murder, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that within minutes of being ordered to stay put, he can be seen mounting his horse and galloping towards the nearest port.

Just _how_ Kili manages to commandeer a privateering galley, befriend its crew and convince them to join the battle they previously bowed out of, nobody quite knows.

Their ship appears out of nowhere in full sail, lining itself broadside to the head of the Armada, reigning frantic, uncoordinated fire along the entire front and disappearing just as quickly into the open waters. They sink two galleons, seriously damage another three and cause a series of collisions that render three more ships useless.

In the end Kili joins the main fleet two days late, just in time for the Battle of Gravelines.

“You’re insane!” the prince hisses in his ear when they hug in greeting, but he can’t be too cross with his friend because his dimples are showing.

“Says the man with a motley crew of pirates, set to save England!” Kili whispers back, his dark eyes shining with mischief and delight.

“Please, they eat Spanish galleons for breakfast. How else do you think my mother could afford her gowns?”

“So long as you don’t get any ideas.”

“No. No ideas.”

Fili, of course, is full of ideas.

Some of which he sets about implementing just as soon as the weather changes, forcing the Spaniards to drop the anchor.

“Absolutely not. She’d have my head.” Sir Francis Drake is less than amused when confronted with his plan.

“I think you’ll find that she’ll have your head just the same, if you arrest her son and put him in chains below deck. Which is what you’ll have to do if you truly wish to thwart me.”

As a superb tactician and experienced leader, Sir Francis Drake knows when he’s been bested. Or at least Fili chooses to see it that way.

“How many do you need?”

*****

The six ships appear out of the darkness nearly silently, save for the flapping of the sails in the wind and an occasional creak of wood. They carry no visible light on them, no troops, no movement, and yet they are harbingers of death.

The fire ships.

Hidden on board one of the vessels, Fili bides his time, watching with mild interest as the flames lick the deck and spread along the ropes. He has learned his patience from too-long court sessions, full or endless supplicants, courtiers and his mothers’ suitors and he employs all of it now, as the enemy galleons come into view, as they grow nearer and nearer, until he can distinguish the individual men’s faces.

They open fire and still he stays in his hiding spot. They will shoot his ship full of holes, but they won’t stop it – the southerly wind gives him too much momentum.

It only takes one candle to set off the fuses.

Screams of panic and terror erupt, as those who would bring war to Fili’s shores finally realise what a gift he’s brought them in return.

The inferno spreads fast; too fast to be put out now.

He aims for a graceful, dignified exit, but a massive lurch when the two crafts collide bow to broadside pulls the deck right from under his feet. Shots start ringing around his head, poorly aimed, but dangerous enough, and Fili scrambles back up, finally scaling the side in an uncoordinated mass of flailing limbs.

The sea feels like a refuge, as the deep, dark water closes over his head.

*****

Behind the _hellburners_, unseen by the Spanish for the blazes burning above the water line, a single, solitary dinghy makes its way, determinedly following in the wake of its much larger brothers.

It hoists no colours, except those of one heart chasing after another.

*****

“- Pig-headed, blithering idiot, with a wit thicker than Tewskbury mustard, you absolute _clot_ of a princeling, so help me Lord, if I find you dead –“

Momentarily confused by the barrage of verbal abuse, Fili can only do so much to stay afloat among the raining debris.

Until a pair of strong hands grab at his underarms and haul him up and out of the water.

Kili’s eyes, so familiar and dear, threaten to write him a eulogy yet.

“I told you to stay on the _Ark Royal_!”

“And you followed up by saying: ‘Bring me a ship, fill it with gunpowder and set it on fire!’ What did you _think_ I was going to do?!”

“Stay on the bloody ship! Instead of risking two lives in the place of one!”

“Oh, and how, pray tell, was your royal arse hoping to return to her luscious shores?!”

“I can swim!”

“In a palace pond maybe, _not_ in the sea at storm!”

Fili’s no-doubt scathing response is lost when the ship above them explodes, throwing their little boat a good distance away and flattening its occupants against each other.

Terrified arms grab and pull automatically, wrapping around precious ribs and bony shoulders clad in soaked linen, holding on with all their strength, as cannon balls rain down freely and whole masts come down like freshly felled trees.

They would protect each other from the fires of hell, if it came to that.

And then Fili starts laughing, deep, full-bellied, delighted laughter, because all around them fire rages on and spreads, and more vessels are ripped apart, unable to escape from their tight formation.

Kili startles when the cool, salty lips close around his own with all the passion of the first, true love, as natural as breathing, as daring as the fire ships. But by their own imaginings they’re two young gods now, free and powerful, capable of getting away with at least two incredulous deeds today, so why should they stop now?

Kili kisses him back, not like he might kiss a brother or a best friend, but like he’d kiss a soul mate, a partner and an object of all his intimate desires. He loves Fili in that moment, loves him more than life itself, holding nothing back, asking forgiveness and permission all at once.

Fili hums a pleased sigh right into his mouth and _moves_, because he wants to, because he’s spoiled and used to getting what he wants, and because he knows not the meaning of the word ‘shame’. Warm body pressing against another, heartbeat, new hardness and old, familiar muscles shifting, as they writhe against each other, close, closer, their, theirs, nobody else’s.

Kili cries out and bucks up, heedless of who might hear or see them, because here, finally, for once, he’s offered all he’s ever desired. Fili’s eyes are way too smug with his latest trick, but also tender with gentle love and dark with coiling passion, and so Kili huffs, for the third time that day having to fight not to be upstaged, and bites down at Fili’s lower lip, the corner of his mouth, his wiry stubble and finally the lobe of his ear.

That earns him a new discovery of his own, when Fili goes rigid around him, fingers curled tight around the nape of his neck, when his own world narrows down and expands all at once, leaving Kili baffled but pleased, and not entirely sure what it is that he’s just conquered.

“Never, _ever_ leave me,” Fili whispers eventually, the earlier thrum of adrenaline relegated to a warm, sated feeling, low in his belly.

“No. I won’t,” Kili agrees, stupid with his love and drunk on the sheer audacity to take this from the future king of England and keep it for his own.

They are their own masters for now, but the history they help to write has an agenda of her own.

*****


End file.
